The other kind of hook is also made of mother-of-pearl, or some other hard shell:  They cannot make them bearded like our hooks; but, to effect the same purpose, they make the point turn inwards.  These are made of all sizes, and used to catch various kinds of fish with great success.  The manner of making them is very simple, and every fisherman is his own artificer:  The shell is first cut into square pieces by the edge of another shell, and wrought into a form corresponding with the outline of the hook, by pieces of coral, which are sufficiently rough to perform the office of a file; a hole is then bored in the middle; the drill being no other than the first stone they pick up that has a sharp corner; this they fix into the end of a piece of bamboo, and turn it between the hands like a chocolate-mill; when the shell is perforated, and the hole sufficiently wide, a small file of coral is introduced, by the application of which the hook is in a short time completed, few costing the artificer more time than a quarter of an hour.

Of their masonry, carving, and architecture, the reader has already formed some idea from the account that has been given of the morais, or repositories of the dead:  The other most important article of building and carving is their boats; and, perhaps, to fabricate one of their principal vessels with their tools, is as great a work as to build a British man-of-war with ours.

They have an adze of stone; a chissel, or gouge, of bone, generally that of a man’s arm between the wrist and elbow; a rasp of coral; and the skin of a sting-ray, with coral sand, as a file or polisher.

This is a complete catalogue of their tools, and with these they build houses, construct canoes, hew stone, and fell, cleave, carve, and polish timber.

The stone which makes the blade of their adzes is a kind of basaltes, of a blackish or grey colour, not very hard, but of considerable toughness:  They are formed of different sizes; some, that are intended for felling, weigh from six to eight pounds; others, that are used for carving, not more than so many ounces; but it is necessary to sharpen both almost every minute; for which purpose, a stone and a cocoa-nut shell full of water are always at hand.

Their greatest exploit, to which these tools are less equal than to any other, is felling a tree:  This requires many hands, and the constant labour of several days.  When it is down, they split it, with the grain, into planks from three to four inches thick, the whole length and breadth of the tree, many of which are eight feet in the girt, and forty to the branches, and nearly of the same thickness throughout.  The tree generally used, is, in their language, called avie, the stem of which is tall and straight; though some of the smaller boats are made of the bread-fruit tree, which is a light spongy wood, and easily wrought.  They smooth the plank very expeditiously and dexterously with their adzes, and can take off a thin coat from a whole plank without missing a stroke.  As they have not the art of warping a plank, every part of the canoe, whether hollow or flat, is shaped by hand.[19]